In the analytic tradition of the 20th century I think that two of the finest philosophers have been Willard Van Orman Quine and Donald Davidson. What is less well known is their indebtedness to the pragmatic tradition. Indeed they are often considered modern pragmatists. I think that Davidson in particular is much closer to Peirce's thought than is often acknowledged. For instance consider the following interview of Davidson. The interviewer has, I believe, some basic misunderstandings of Peirce, but the responses are quite interesting. Those familiar with Derrida might also recognize some of Davidson's critiques of Cartesianism. Of course Derrida's focus is quite different than Davidson. But I think Derrida is sometimes given too hard a time because of his topic of inquery. (Which frankly most people don't understand) Of course there are some significant differences as well. The following quote probably highlights them best.
Quine emphasized indeterminacy in order to wean us away from the myth of meanings. Having been weaned, we can now turn to the legitimate question of what is invariant, the 'facts of the matter.' - Donald Davidson
The reason I bring all of this up, is because the notion of "indeterminacy" introduced by Peirce with his semiotics, has been carried through by Quine and Davidson. Certainly there are differences, but the fundamental question is the "invariant." This same issue is, I believe, the issue for Derrida as well. Derrida's answer is to deny any stable "facts of the matter." (Which is not the same as denying facts or truth) For Peirce things are someone different in that he speaks of our inquiry converging on truth "in the long run." Exactly what this "long run" consists of isn't clear to me. It appears that he believes we asymtopically converge on truth, but never reach it. However his fallibilism suggests that this isn't a convergence of stability. Rather new inquiry may radically reformulate past beliefs. Still the new beliefs will be closer to the "truth" than prior inquiries. Thus Peirce is, I believe, more radical than most forms of scientific realism in their conceptions of a convergence on truth. What is common to Peirce, Derrida and Davidson is this recognition that the basic premise of "Cartesian" approaches to truth is false. There is no "presence" that is given to us in purity. There is always some indeterminacy.
An excellent recent paper that discusses Quine and Davidson on meaning in language is Alexander George's "Linguistic Practice and Its Discontents." An excellent discussion of Quine's indeterminacy of translation thesis is found in the article "Quine on Indeterminacy" in the book The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language. It is important to remember that Quine is primarily discussing language, even if his pragmatic influences were more encompassing in their notion of indeterminacy. Davidson is far closer to Peirce than Quine is, despite carrying on Quine's basic project. However Davidson is noted for criticizing those who attempt to define truth. Yet one could argue that Peirce's notion of the long run isn't a definition of truth, merely the belief that we converge on truth.
I'd mention one last article which mentions Davidson and Quine, but thinks Peirce offers solutions to various problems in analytic philosophy. Whether you agree or not "A Plea for a Peircean Turn in Analytic Philosophy" is interesting. More interesting is the following discussion of Peirce and Davidson.
(Perm Link)I came upon a rather intriguing paper on the issue of what the "extension" of the mind is. This is somewhat relevant to the work I'm doing on Pratt. Pratt, of course, believe that mind and matter were the same thing in a manner quite unlike normal materialists. He adopted the panpsychic position that all matter had consciousness as a property. Intelligent beings thus were a kind of interacting collection of individual mind-like atoms. Exactly what he meant by consciousness isn't completely clear. But it would seem clear that things separate from our body could act as part of our "mind" if they are able to interact.
Of course few would adopt Pratt's views as formulated, if only because of the problem of his naive Newtonian view of physics. Still it raises an interesting question. If I had a spirit and could "think" then my brain is in some way also thinking. It flows naturally into a way of thinking of "mind" as extended among all signs that could contribute to the overall mind.
A few years ago there was an great movie most of you saw called Memento. In that film a person seeking his wife's killer has lost his short term memory. Since he can't recall any clues he discovers he writes notes to himself, tatooing important ones on his body. The film was usually interpreted as an analysis of the unreliability of memory. Are they only signs telling a story we fill the blanks in for? However the paper "Memento's Revenge: The Extended Mind, Extended" uses it for a different approach - something more in line with my discussion about Pratt. Do the tatoos and notes act as part of the hero's mind? In effect, is the mind extended across these "external" signs.
This is a great way to introduce the subject to people who aren't familiar with this more semiotic notion of mind. It clearly moves towards a kind of holism of mind in which the boundaries of my mind end up being the whole universe. Afterall if any object can act as a sign and thereby as part of my mind, can we draw boundaries that aren't artificial?
(Perm Link)The old philosophical debate between Determinism and Freedom has been a popular one among Mormons as well. By my estimation it has been one of the most common topics on the LDS-Phil mailing list. Those discussing the issue often appeal to Van Inwagen's various papers on the subject as "framing" the discussion. Those interested may be interested in the follow papers:
The Mystery Of Metaphysical Freedom
On Free Will
The Problems and How We Shall Approach Them
There are also a few places on the web that summarize the standard rejoinders to Van Inwagen:
Free Will and Determinism
A Reply to Van Inwagen
Discussion of Van Inwagen
A Compatibilist Theory of Responsibility and Freedom
An other approach to the problem arises less from the analytic tradition than from what we might term the Continental tradition. Consider, for example, Nietzsche and free will. Schacht has a good discussion of this issue in his Nietzsche starting on page 304. According to Schacht, Nietzsche rejects determinism, compatibilism, and free will. He finds the thinking that allows such discussions to originate flawed. Nietzsche's basic view is that causality is a flawed, and in a sense, is a secondary notion. Further he criticizes the notion of will that free will presumes. He also (now reading between the lines in Nietzsche and Schacht via a bit of Ricouer) may simply reject the notion of self that underlies discussions of compatibilism or anti-compatibilism. We can, I think, see this in comments like the following:
In the 'in itself' there is nothing of 'causal connections,' of 'necessity,' or of 'psychological non-freedom' (Beyond Good and Evil, 21)
Now Schacht's reading of Nietzsche is, among some groups, controversial. Perhaps not as controversial as Heidegger's or Kauffman's. But it definitely is more trying to explain Nietzsche to an analytic crowd. For an interesting counterpoint, one might wish to read Ernst Behler's Confrontations: Derrida - Heidegger - Nietzsche which discusses how those thinkers encounter each other. He in passing discusses the presentation of Nietzsche to English speakers via Kauffman, Heidegger, and others.
Having said all that, I think Nietzsche's consideration of will is relevant to the discussion. I think that we do have some hidden assumptions regarding what will is. Some of my friends have actually argued that Nietzsche's notion of will undermines Van Ingwan's arguments. It appears to me that Nietzsche, much as Van Inwagan ties the discussion to responsibility. Rather than defining responsibility in terms of free will though, Nietzsche inverts this. Thus people become responsible by overcoming. Few are responsible in this sense. It thus appears to me that Nietzsche offers a vision of the free will debate that actually follows Van Inwagen more than perhaps my friends suggests.
Now perhaps Nietzsche would reject the way Van Inwagen puts the "principle of alternative possibilities." However I think he follows the general thrust. Where I think he and Van Inwagen might part company is in whether this responsibility is always present and how it is present. That is, how often are we truly free?
This seems to be a fundamental shift in tone from the way the discussion is typically tendered. Usually it is given as an all or nothing. Either one accepts free will or one doesn't. Yet, if Nietzsche is to be followed, it seems it is that assumption that is put in doubt. Further, as I mentioned, Nietzsche is highly critical of what he terms the naive view of both free will and determinism. I think, given his analysis of responsibility, this criticism makes more sense. Both free will and causality are myths - perhaps useful myths - but secondary and in a sense a mistake.
(Perm Link)Just a few brief links today. I've caught, to a limited extent, the economics bug. I must admit that historically I've had a rather negative perception of economics and sociology - mainly due to the mathematical incompetence of people in those professions that I found at college. I fully admit that this the the arrogances of physics at play in my biases. And I'm doing my best to overcome this since clearly there is good work in both. I suspect that my main complaint really is a result of my assumptions regarding philosophy of science. As I understand science the goal of a scientist is to uncover new "unobservables" and then test them as if they were real. This isn't quite the same as taking them as real. Rather it is more a goal or end that is to uncover the real in terms of these hidden "entities." The problem is that economics and sociology don't tend to do this. Milton Friedman famously went so far as to say that economics should fundamentally adopt an Instrumentalist view of economics. (i.e. the details of the models are irrelevant so long as they generate accurate predictions in the arena of study) This, to me, is but one step up above behavouralism and its naive metaphysical "denials."
Of course I always recognized that I overstated the case. But I've long thought that progress in psychology, sociology and economics would accelerate once neurobiology came of age. Along those lines I found the following paper on the intersection of law, economics and neurology. Law & Neuroeconomics. Clearly I think that learning brain structure will aid in our disciplines, including linguistics and other such things. It will also make the application of such more logical avenues of thought like semiotics much easier. Right now while a lot of work has been done in semiotics, its application has often been haphazard. It is in a place akin to the early relationship between mathematics and physics. Once that relationship became established physics was able to make fast and substantial progress. I'm fairly confident we're on the verge of just that sort of breakthrough.
By the way, related to my initial comments. I found one invaluable resource for economics. The Law and Economics Blog has lots of interesting stories and has very helpful links to other resources. An other interesting Blog is related to the above article and is the Neuroeconomics Blog. Unfortunately it hasn't been updated since Christmas. But it has lots of interesting links on the topic.
(Perm Link)One of the major points in which Mormonism departs from traditional Christianity is in terms of how we view the essence or ousia of God. Traditional Christianity has long viewed it in very neoPlatonic terms, with important modifications. (Such as creation ex nihlo instead of Plotinus' emanations) In recent years some scholars have started rethinking the basic philosophy behind the Trinitarian doctrine of the Christian faith. Many of these considerations are fairly similar to Mormon belief. Surprisingly many Mormons aren't that familiar with some of the recent developments in philosophy.
The most famous example of a rethinking is Plantinga's notion of social trinitarianism. Plantinga's view of the Godhead as a social unity has not been very well accepted in the west, especially those with strong Latin philosophical leanings. It does have strong historical roots in more eastern Christianity - especially the thought of Gregory of Nyssa. While not exactly popular among conservative mainstream Christians, the fact that the doctrine has been discussed is interesting for Mormons, if only to provide careful analytic considerations of the notion.
I tend to find social trinitarianism as typically formulated interesting but insufficient to explain Mormon theology. One problem is that one can't separate the notions from their context. Clearly "persons" in the patristic writings does not parallel Mormon conceptions of the divine persons as full material beings like Jesus Christ. Further Mormons do not normally limit the persons in the Godhead to just the three divine beings. Indeed the King Follet Discourse is typically taken to mean that our goal is to be unified with them. Sarah Coakley of Harvard University has some interesting "contextualizations" of the current debate over social trinitarianism. Her paper offers some interesting considerations to those Mormons thinking about Social Trinitarianism.
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Blogged by Clark Goble